In the context of the threat and
open provocation that constitutes, for Venezuela and all of Latin
America, the setting up of seven US military bases on Colombian
territory (in addition to three bases US forces are already operating
from), Venezuelan-American lawyer Eva Golinger warned in the television
program, La Hojilla on August 14th 2009, about a new war doctrine
recently released by the Pentagon and already being executed here in
Venezuela: Irregular Warfare. Considering the seriousness of what
Golinger brought forward in the program mentioned, it is pertinent to
go more deeply into the matter in order to determine how this new
doctrine is connected with other concepts and realities as, for example,
Fourth Generation Warfare, as well as with ideological constructions
like the so-called "Theory of the New Wars." The latter is a compound of
arbitrary postulates originating from the academic realm and sold to
the public as a 'theory' which dates back to the beginning of the new
millennium. This theory has quickly found its way into the sphere of the
national security strategies of both the United States and
the European Union. Once we have come to know the interrelations and the
general context into which the latest war doctrines are made, we
can better design our own defense strategies and even think of
outlining a categorical counter-offensive.

In an update for the doctrine of
Irregular Warfare released by the US Department of Defense in December
last year, we find the following definition of the concept: " ... to fight
unconventionally, such as by working with foreign security forces,
surrogates and indigenous resistance movements to shore up fragile
states, extend the reach of US forces into denied areas or battle
hostile regimes." (1)

The directive then proceeds to
explain the reasons for the update, referring in the first place to the
emergence of irregular challenges that threaten the United States'
national security:

"The policy, a result of
more than a year of debate in the defense establishment, is part of a
broader overhaul of the US military's role as the threat of large-scale
combat against other nations' armies has waned and new dangers have
arisen from shadowy non-state actors, such as terrorists that target
civilian populations." (2)

The idea that 'classical' or
'conventional' wars between nation-states as experienced during the
Twentieth Century are a thing of the past and that the new wars of the
Twenty-First Century are of an essentially different character, is not
that new. For quite a couple of years, the US- American and
European ruling classes, through mass communication,
have been suggesting to the world that the protagonists
of the wars of the Twenty-First Century are some 'bad guys' who operate
as 'non-state-actors' - in other words, terrorists. We are told that the
wars of the Twenty-First Century are and will be inner-state armed
conflicts with endemic roots, that is, home-made. We are further told
that this type of conflicts are of an ethnic, religious or
political-ideological nature, promote terrorism, open the doors for
drug-trafficking and organized crime and thus erode any effort to
guarantee public order and internal security, reasons for which they
necessarily lead to the so-called 'failed States'. 'Failed States', in
turn, endanger the peace of their surrounding region and thus
constitute a security challenge to the 'modern' or 'civilized'
countries, especially in our globalized world. The latter, for being
'superior' with regard to their values and economic and cultural
performance, are obligated to intervene in those 'chaotic regions' for
the sake of helping the populations there to recover or gain the firm
ground of 'western-democratic civilization'.

We have to make this crystal-clear:
The spreading and penetration of this kind of ideas forms an intrinsic
part of another war doctrine, that of Fourth Generation Warfare, the
main theater of operation of which is the human mind of both the
populations of the metropolitan countries, as well as the populations of
those countries who do not pertain to this auto-proclaimed
'western-democratic-civilization'. The main objective of Fourth
Generation Warfare fought on a world-wide scale is to bomb, weaken and
then mold the human psyche so that the peoples of this world will
succumb to the reality of globalized capitalism with its economic,
financial, ecological, social and moral crisis, with its perverse
concentration and monopolization of capital and power in the hands of
some small elites, and to make the peoples of the world accept the
eventual rise of a totalitarian, repressive and dictatorial system on a
global scale, which we have referred to in earlier writings as
'global fascism'. (3) Specifically, the goal of Fourth Generation Warfare
world-wide is to make the populations of the metropolitan countries
adopt, as their own, a supposed 'civilizing and pacifying mission',
based on the 'universal values of western democracy' which need to be
extended all over the world; and to make the populations of the
'periphery' give up on resistance and accept the forceful imposition of
neoliberal, globalized capitalism and its rules of the game as the
only viable way for humanity, thus making them refrain from seeking to
establish alternative models, such as is the case here in our latitudes.

The cannons in this war against the
human mind and psyche are the mass media and the artillery is
'information'. Amongst the army that moves this lethal machine, figure
journalists, columnists, scientists, military personnel, strategists,
politicians, advisers, State officials, bureaucrats, diplomats and
academics, all of them putting themselves knowingly or unknowingly at
the service of unrestricted capital accumulation on a global scale, never-mind its nefarious consequences, a thousand times proven, a
thousand times suffered. The serfdom of its followers increases even
more in times of a systemic crisis like the one we are experiencing at
this moment, which is of a magnitude that only uses to be 'resolved' by
means of a devastating world war.

So let us get acquainted with one
of the fighters of the Fourth Generation Warfare, defender of
globalized, neoliberal capitalism and exponent of the Theory of the New
Wars: Thomas P. M. Barnett, US citizen, military analyst and
geo-strategist of the Pentagon, who identifies in his book, 'The
Pentagon's new map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century' (4), a
critical zone which hosts internal conflicts, possible failed States
and threats for international security, and which he calls 'the
non-integrated gap'. This dangerous black hole comprises Central
America and the Caribbean, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia,
Paraguay, Guyana, Suriname, French Guyana, the African Continent except
South Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East except Israel, Central
Asia, Indochina, Indonesia y Phillipines. The 'non-integrated gap'
stands in a stark contrast to what Barnett calls 'the functioning core
of globalization', that is: the United States of America, Canada,
Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Western Europe, Russia,
China, India, Japan and Australia. What characterizes the
'non-integrated gap' according to Barnett is its being composed of
countries that are uncoupled from globalization and its rules of the
game, reason for which they constitute a potential danger and a
challenge for the 'functioning core' from the point of view of Western
security policy. Thus and in the name of the security strategies of the
'functioning core of globalization', the countries of the
'non-integrated gap' will have to be forcefully integrated, that is, by
military power. Behind this cumbersome terminology hides, of course, a
simple reality: The open militarization of neoliberal capitalism and
its unhindered expansion to all corners of the planet. In the words of
Barnett himself:

"If a country is either
losing out to globalization or rejecting much of the content flows
associated with its advance, there is a far greater chance that the U.
S. will end up sending forces at some point. Conversely, if a country
is largely functioning within globalization, we tend not to have to
send our forces there to restore order or eradicate threats." (5)

The frontiers between the
'non-integrated gap' and the 'functioning core of globalization' are,
according to Barnett, in any case (and conveniently) dynamic, and it
may occur that a sector of the 'non-integrated gap' ends up forming
part of the 'functioning core', as has effectively happened with
Eastern Europe, which has been 'integrated' (or rather absorbed), after
the neoliberal restructuring of its economies, into the European Union
in the context of the Union's expansion towards the east
('Osterweiterung'). This occurred in 2004, the year when Barnett
published his book and when ten new member states, eight from Eastern
Europe, joined the European Union, followed by another two in 2007.
However, Barnett does not exclude the possibility either, that
reversely, part of the 'functioning core' may decay and come to form
part of the 'gap'.

Barnett's European equivalent is
Robert Cooper, a British diplomat, strategist, European National
Security Strategy adviser in 2003, main advisory of Javier Solana, the
High Representative of Foreign Policy and Common Security of the
European Union, and author of the book 'The Breaking of Nations: Order
and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century'. (6) Cooper, like his American
counterpart, divides the world in two: a 'postmodern' world, conceived
as a voluntary association of States like the European Union and
characterized by its security, transparency and the interdependence of
its member States; and a 'pre-modern' world, conceived as a world of
'failed States', incapable of maintaining their monopoly of force and
of defending their citizens from the actions of irregular groups,
destabilizing factors or organized crime. Like a postmodern
Machiavelli, Robert Cooper openly and unscrupulously recommends the
double standard as the method of international relations in our world
of two worlds of the Twenty-First Century:

"The challenge to the
postmodern world is to get used to the idea of double standards. Among
ourselves, we operate on the basis of laws and open cooperative
security. But when dealing with more old-fashioned kinds of states
outside the postmodern continent of Europe, we need to revert to the
rougher methods of an earlier era - force, pre-emptive attack,
deception, whatever is necessary to deal with those who still live in
the nineteenth century world of every state for itself. Among
ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we
must also use the laws of the jungle. In the prolonged period of peace
in Europe, there has been a temptation to neglect our defenses, both
physical and psychological. This represents one of the great dangers of
the postmodern state." (7)

Let us take note then, that the
United States of America as well as Europe see us, the peoples who
conform to Humanity of the South and who have been victims of their
criminal assaults ever since the times of colonization, as a 'black
hole', 'non-integrated gap', 'pre-modern world' or 'jungle'! Let us
also take note, that the conflicts in our regions, products of our
historic realities in which each stage since colonization has been
marked by impositions and interventions from the capitalist power
centers and often artificially stoked from outside, are 'home-made',
tribal in nature, inter-ethnic, anachronistic, just typical of the
jungle! Once more, each and every word of Western propaganda transpires
hateful racism and supremacism. However, there is an interesting detail
when Cooper reveals the class character of the 'new' security and
defense doctrines, underlining that it is essential for the elites of
the 'postmodern world' to establish a set of beliefs in a 'civilizing
mission' to convince their own population and others of their noble
intentions:

"To persuade your own
people to risk their lives in chaotic foreign countries requires the
belief that you are spreading some gospel, pursuing a mission of
civilization or (in the worst case) establishing the natural
superiority of your race. It requires confidence and conviction. And
then, if you are to be successful, you have to persuade the people that
you are subjugating that you are doing this in their own interests and
in the service of a higher good; most people are subjugated by ideas
rather than by force." (8)

In their need to control the minds
of their populations with this kind of 'new myths' within the context
of Fourth Generation Warfare and to achieve that they affirm the ever
more openly military character of the European Union, the European
dominant classes can count on various erudites, true masters in hiding
the cold interests of economic-imperial expansion of the European
elites behind a mask of morality, humanism and the virtues of a
guardian angel. Amongst them are Mary Kaldor, of British nationality,
director of the Center for Studies of Global Governance at the London
School of Economics and Political Science, member, at the time, of the
Study Group of European Security Capacities in the service of Javier
Solana and author of the book: 'New and old Wars. Organized Violence in
a Global Era'. (9) Kaldor argues in the same line as Cooper when
she, too, states that we live in a world of two worlds: the world of
'modern cosmopolitanism' which is a world in peace, based on the values
of inclusion, universalism and multiculturalism, and the world of
'pre-modern particularism', which is a world characterized by the
implosion of those States which have been unable to cope with
globalization and whose autonomy, monopoly of violence and capacity to
defend their citizens has been broken, giving way to violence and the
collapse of democracy. Thus, Kaldor pleads for the launching of a
'global civilizing process' in order to contain the threat that the
premodern world poses for global security.

The German sociologist Ulrich Beck,
in the same order of ideas, claims an 'European Cosmopolitan Empire', a
kind of guardian angel who, in order to confront the dangers emanating
from the pre-modern world, must impose by force the values of the
postmodern world there, in the name of the unprotected citizens of the
pre-modern world:

"A new policy is emerging,
a post-national policy of military humanism, that is, the
implementation of a transnational military power that has the goal of
reinforcing the respect for human rights beyond national boundaries.
[...] Thus, war becomes the continuation of ethics by other means." (10)

Finally, Herfried Muenkler,
professor for Political Theory of the Humboldt University in Berlin and
author of the book 'The New Wars' (11), defines these as characterized
by 'de-nationalization' and 'asymmetricalization'. The latter concept
refers to the unique, military supremacy of the United States of
America in today's world, that can only be confronted, by any given
adversary, by means of asymmetric strategies like terrorism or
guerrilla warfare. 'De-nationalization' refers to the decomposition of
State authority which occurs, according to Muenkler, in the first place
in countries of the so called 'Third World' and which is the result of
the failure of modern State building processes there, with the blame
lying on their immoral and corrupt elites. Thus, Muenkler conceives the
new wars as state-disintegration-wars. The State's loss of its monopoly
of violence gives way to the emergence of violent private groups who
finance themselves through smuggling and drug-trafficking with
destabilizing consequences for politics and economics of the region,
reason for which the West must intervene to avoid a major encroachment.
In the words of Muenkler:

"International terrorism has
its refuge in the first place there where State structures have
collapsed in the course of an inter-societal war. No region exists
today in the globalized world in which the collapse of State structures
would not have serious consequences for global, political and economic
structures, reason for which, from the point of view of security
policy, the need for military export of stability emerges. The West has
to be prepared to assume the armed pacification of entire regions." (12)

'Postmodern world' versus 'jungle
world', 'military humanism', 'military export of stability', 'armed
pacification' -- these are the keywords of an ample literature of which
we have barely presented some fragmentary extracts, the postulates of
which have penetrated, like bullets, the brains of millions of people
in Europe and North America. These ideological constructions,
disseminated in the realm of academia, in books and strategic documents
of security and defense, in the press and on TV, represent nothing less
than the 'moral' legitimation of the 21st century's aggression wars,
ignoring any notion of national sovereignty, territorial integrity,
self-determination of the peoples and the principle of non-intervention
for considering them archaic, pre-modern concepts, proper of the
jungle. The military export of stability in recent times to what was
once Yugoslavia, to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Gaza, gives us an idea of
what is awaiting us with the planned export of stability to Our
America: Latin America, with the setting up of seven or more US
military bases on Colombian territory.

With this general context in mind,
having shown the connections between Fourth Generation Warfare and
ideological constructions like the Theory of the New Wars, and taking
into account their consequences for the thinking and attitude of
millions of people in the metropolitan countries, let us get back once
more to the concept of Irregular Warfare as introduced and explained by
Eva Golinger in the program 'La Hojilla' on the 14th of August. Under
the premise that we have entered (or never left) an era of perpetual
warfare, the new doctrine of Irregular Warfare comes to be the core of
the United States' military mission of the 21st Century. Its goals are
to materialize the strategic, mid- and long term objectives by means of
unconventional methods, working on the adversary's physical and
psychological erosion in the context of a protracted low-intensity-war
which is being waged on a regional and global scale. All this in order
to gain control over territories, natural and energy resources,
geo-strategic corridors and entire populations. Irregular warfare is
about what the US Department of Defense, in correspondence with the
concepts sketched above, calls 'stability operations', when in reality
and reversely, the objective of these operations is the continuous and
systematic destabilization of governments who are perceived as hostile
or non-aligned with the interests of the US, or who simply defend their
national sovereignty, territorial integrity and self-determination --
'pre-modern', 'archaic' ideas and concepts, according to the global
elites.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise
that the already mentioned North American strategist Thomas P. M.
Barnett, in an article published on the 10th of August, titled 'The New
Rules: The Evolution of the U.S. Military', states in response to the "predictable condemnations from anti-American elements in South
America", that the installation of new US military bases in Colombia
"simply reflects the increasing granularity of our efforts at promoting
regional stability." (13)

'Stability operations' -- there is
certainly something striking about this concept: If there is anything
the global ruling classes have tried to stabilize without success, it's
this very system which is unstable in itself: capitalism. There is no
capitalism without crisis, there is no crisis without capitalism. The
capitalist economic crisis is being periodically generated by the
internal contradictions of the system, and wars are its periodical
'solutions'. Economic crisis and its solution, war, are the two sides
of capitalist instability. However, when capital and labor forces are
being destroyed by wars the system gets a new lease of life as long as
the 'reconstruction' lasts, and this is wherein its perverse stability
and stable perversion lies.

Only with a social class
consciousness and a consequently internationalist, anti-imperialist and
anti-capitalist vision can we emerge without harm from the bombardments
of mental manipulation and draw up a strategy that does not end up
delivering us into the arms of the monster we are fighting.